Motor vehicles have, since their inception, required a means for slowing and stopping the vehicle. Over time, two types of brake systems developed for that purpose. One such system is the drum brake, which uses friction caused by a set of opposing shoes or pads when they press outward against a rotating cylinder-shaped drum to which the wheel is engaged. In more recent times, a second mode of wheel braking developed using calipers which compress opposing pads upon a rotor engaged with the wheel.
Caliper braking has proven to be a significant improvement over drum brakes and is conventionally employed on at least the front wheels of modern autos and truck. In use, the two opposing pads are compressed against the perimeter of a rotor engaged to the axle of the wheel they are intended to brake. In use, a pressing of the brake pedal on the vehicle, causes the caliper holding the opposing pads to compress against the rotor thereby slowing the wheels and the vehicle.
While the employment of calipers with opposing pads in disk brake systems improves braking, there are a number of problems associated with such systems from an owner's standpoint. Unlike drum brakes which tend to prevent dust from the shoes from contacting the wheel rim, calipers inherently eject brake shoe dust onto the wheel and caliper during use due to the open caliper and force of the rotor running through it. The dust is the byproduct of the frictional engagement of the brake pads with the spinning rotor during stopping of the wheel. While functionally not a serious problem, most drivers consider the brake dust unsightly on the caliper when viewed through holes in the wheel. Further, many drivers consider the caliper itself unsightly.
Other problems associated with braking systems employing calipers and rotors are heat generation during from the frictional engagement of the brake discs with the rotor and, additionally, the communication of the dust from the brake pads not only to the caliper but to a sticky engagement upon the wheels and surface of the car and surrounding wheel well.
Prior solutions in the art, with regard to the caliper dust problem, employed covers for the calipers in an attempt to hide them from view and to limit dust communication. However, previous caliper covers generally glue to the caliper which is unsafe and hard to remove or provide for a single mount with no adjustment for the cover closer or further from the wheel. Additionally, some such covers require the removal of the caliper from its mount and the employment of special tools and mounting components to provide a mount for the caliper cover.
Removing the caliper is beyond the scope of most owner's skills and tool collections. Other caliper covers have been disclosed using connectors to an edge of the caliper. However, while such may have provided an easily engaged caliper cover mount, such connections don't allow for translation of the caliper along the line of the wheel axle to allow the user to translate the cover toward or away from the exterior caliper surface to accommodate thicker calipers, or to position the cover to avoid contact with interior of wheels which might otherwise contact the cover when engaged too close thereto.
Provided herein is a caliper cover mounting system which will engage and disengage easily with a brake caliper by a simple engagement on both sides of a caliper above the path of travel of the rotor through the caliper where the mount will not encounter the brake pads during activation of the caliper. The system herein is configured to easily engage with existing edges of the caliper above the path of the rotor therethrough, in a frictional and secure engagement not easily dismounted once so engaged. Cover position can be accomplished by translation of a mounting member to thereby move the cover within a distance between the engaged wheel and the exterior surface of the caliper.